Rikard Holmdahl is a Swedish physician and immunologist. He was appointed as a full professor and the head of Medical Inflammation Research (MIR) unit at Lund University in 1993. In 2008, Rikard and his whole research group were recruited to Karolinska Institute.[1] His team was the first to discover and positionally clone a single nucleotide polymorphism at the Ncf1 gene causing susceptibility to autoimmune diseases in rat models.[2] Rikard was an adjunct member of the Nobel Committee for physiology or medicine between 2016 and 2021,[3] and was ranked 2nd among the top immunology scientists in Sweden in 2021.[4]
Career
Rikard Holmdahl obtained his Doctor of Philosophy and Medical Doctor degrees at Uppsala University in 1985 and 1987, respectively.[5] After his clinical residency training during 1988-1989, he started his research fellowship and was promoted as Associate Professor at Swedish Medical Research Council in 1990.[1]
He became a full professor since 1993, and he is now the head of the MIR Division at Karolinska Institute (2008–present).[6] He was a member of the Nobel Assembly during 2014–2021 and an adjunct member of the Nobel committee for physiology or medicine during 2016–2021.[3] He is also a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science since 2017.[7]
Awards
- 1994: The Göran Gustafsson prize in medicine, Swedish Royal Science Academy.[8]
- 2002: The European Descartes prize “the most prestigious prize in medicine given by the European Community” [9]
- 2003: The SalusAnsvar Nordic Medical prize.[10]
- 2015: The Anders Jahre main scientific prize, "the most prestigious Nordic prize in medicine".[11]
- 2015: The Yangtze River Scholar Award, "the highest academic award issued to an individual in higher education by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China".[12]